Individual and contextual determinants of party sympathy in Latin America

Abstract

The Latin American political context is marked by the recurrence of fragile programmatic and ideological links between voters and parties, as well as marked electoral volatility and decreasing levels of political trust. Despite this scenario, parties remain central to the functioning of democracies in the region, as well as in consolidated regimes. Understanding that one of the central elements in the dynamics of party systems is the link between voters and parties, our objective is to identify the individual and contextual foundations of party sympathy manifestation among Latin American voters. We propose hierarchical regression models with individual data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (Lapop) and information from national political and economic contexts. The results point to the preponderance of the explanatory capacity of the democracy age in relation to individual and national characteristics (economic, political and partisan).